“Jack,” Jack said from the hole, and I turned around to see if the rescue squad had brought it down with them.

“Jack,” he said again, more urgently.

I leaned over the tunnel.

“What time is it?” he said.

“About five,” I said. “The all-clear just went.”

“Is it getting light?”

“Not yet,” I said. “Have you found anything?”

“Yes,” he said. “Give us a hand.”

I eased myself into the hole. I could understand his question; it was pitch dark down here. I switched my torch on. It lit up our faces from beneath like spectres.

“In there,” he said, and reached for a banister just like the one he’d been digging with.

“Is he under a stairway?” I said and the banister clutched at his hand.

It only took a minute or two to get him out. Jack pulled on the arm I had mistaken for a banister, and I scrabbled through the last few inches of plaster and clay to the little cave he was in, formed by an icebox and a door leaning against each other.

“Colonel Godalming?” I said, reaching for him.

He shook off my hand. “Where the bleeding hell have you people been?” he said. “Taking a tea break?”

He was in full evening dress, and his big moustache was covered with plaster dust. “What sort of country is this, leave a man to dig himself out?” he shouted, brandishing a serving spoon full of plaster in Jack’s face. “I could have dug all the way to China in the time it took you blighters to get me out!”

Hands came down into the hole and hoisted him up. “Blasted incompetents!” he yelled. We pushed on the seat of his elegant trousers. “Slackers, the lot of you! Couldn’t find the nose in front of your own face!”

Colonel Godalming had in fact left for Surrey the day before but had decided to come back for his hunting rifle, in case of invasion. “Can’t rely on the blasted Civil Defence to stop the jerries,” he had said as I led him down to the ambulance.